John Cornyn vs. Ken Paxton in Texas Republican Senate runoff

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Well, the state of Texas is holding its primary runoff elections today. The main contest to watch is the Republican race for US Senate. Incumbent John Cornyn is fighting for his political survival against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who recently secured President Trump's endorsement. And despite that, yesterday Senator Cornyn said he's confident he could win re-election.

[00:00:24]I think we're very much in the game and I'm very happy with the efforts we've made to the encourage more people to vote and to try to continue to represent the state of Texas as I have done for many years now.

[00:00:40]And the winner of today's runoff will go up against Democratic nominee James Talarico in November. CBS News political director Finn Gomez is following today's elections for us. Finn, great to see you. Let's talk about this. The president's endorsement is expected to carry Paxton over the finish line today, but could Senator John Cornyn still pull off a victory?

[00:00:59]Well, you know, Senator Cornyn certainly is acting like he can have he does have a chance of winning here. I mean, he is he is he's going full throttle. We see him put out those more campaign ads. He was obviously he's doing a lot of media and really going full force. However, he's trying to do something very few Republicans have been able to do in the Trump era and that's survive a primary after President Trump has endorsed his opponent. We have seen it so far this past year. So the so-called revenge tour, we saw it in Kentucky last week.

[00:01:31]We saw it in Indiana with those Indiana state Republicans earlier in the spring. But you know, while he has a very uphill climb here and most Texas Democrats and Republicans that I spoke to believe that it is an uphill climb.

[00:01:45]He certainly is fighting like he has a chance. We'll see how that works out.

[00:01:50]Most polls that since the endorsement show show that there's already already a little bit of a surge amongst Republican voters in Texas. Uh Ken Paxton is already focused seemingly focused on the general election. He put his a PAC closely related to that supporting Ken Paxton put out an ad just yesterday attacking James Talarico the Democrat in the race. But Paxton does have a like a certain sense of you've seen the certain sense of confidence that sort of built up with him just since the endorsement. Here's what he had to say just a little while ago on the campaign trail.

[00:02:30]With the endorsement it becomes a lot clearer that I'm going to be the nominee and we wanted to focus on the positive and then focus on our next job which is take down this Democrat who has the most radical views that maybe I've ever seen certainly in Texas.

[00:02:45]This is a guy James Talarico who who might be able to get elected in California but certainly once voters in Texas know his views I cannot imagine that they would support this guy.

[00:02:57]The big question tonight isn't just who wins but by how much. Republicans are also watching whether this bruising primary into this turn off into this runoff leaves the party divided heading into what could become one of the most expensive Senate races in the country. It's been already the most expensive Senate primary ever.

[00:03:15]But you know all eyes all Republican eyes are now set no matter what on James Talarico the Democratic nominee and what is expected to be the mark one of the marquee races this cycle. And Finneran are there other runoffs that you've got your eye on today? Yeah there are several house runoffs in Texas that could have big implications for both parties heading into November. One of the most closely watched Michael of these runoffs is is Texas 35th District where Democrats are dealing with a deeper bitter and and somewhat unusual primary fight. The race has drawn national attention because Democratic candidate Marine Galindo has faced intense bipartisan backlash over anti-Semitic and inflammatory comments she made online, including posts about prisoning American Zionists into into an ice facility ice facility ice facility and also saying that she would turn that facility into a castration processing processing center.

[00:04:11]Even top Democrats including Hakeem Jeffries, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have condemned her remarks. James Clarico has publicly said that he would not campaign with Galindo if she wins the runoff.

[00:04:24]All right, Finn Gomez. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it. Thank you.